Cohen and Felson’s Routine Activities Theory
One family of theories, called environmental criminology, studies how crime and victimization occur within the build environments, which is the way that individuals and organizations shape their activities spatially. This is an important part of the study of crime and criminology, dating back to the work of Park and Burgess’ (1925) concentric zone model. Environmental criminology has been a key theoretical family in creating prevention strategies and policing practices. Among the environmental theories, routine activity theory is one of the more commonly
applied to crime and victimization. It is considered a macro-level theory because it looks at how alterations in community life create new opportunities for crime.
Routine activities theory (RAT) postulates that a crime happens when three factors come together:
• A suitable target • A motivated offender • A lack of guardianship
The absence of any of these factors affects the criminal actions (Cohen & Felson, 1979). When Cohen and Felson first started working on their theory, they were focusing on changes in rates of predatory crimes (murder, rape, burglary) over time. They looked at how the opportunities for crimes were related to patterns of routine social interaction such as going to work or school or being in public places like bars and parks. It was not about how someone might participate in their own victimization through individual actions, but rather how our daily routines can increase the potential for victimization. Thus, criminal opportunities are not evenly spread out through society, and there are limits on crime.
The first factor in the theory is a suitable target. A suitable target is a person, place, or object that has some characteristics that makes it attractive to a motivated offender. The daily routines of a person can make that person more likely to become a suitable target (just because someone is a target does not mean they will become a victim). A suitable target has four features:
• Value – the value of the target to the offender, not necessarily a monetary value, although that is often a factor. A new smartphone is going to be considered more valuable than an old flip phone.
• Inertia – how moveable the target is. The more mobile a target is, the easier it is for an offender. Small electronic devices, like laptops and tablets, are excellent targets because they are easily portable, as opposed to a heavy large screen TV that takes multiple people to move.
• Visibility – whether or not the target can be known to the offender. A car becomes a more suitable target for a theft if a laptop or cell phone is left on the back seat in plain sight. If the offender is not aware of a suitable target because those items are in the trunk, the likelihood of a crime is reduced.
• Access – patterns and placement of potential targets that are often features of everyday life but also make the target more accessible for the offender. A burglar doesn’t need to search very hard if a purse, wallet, or phone are kept next to the front door or on the front seat of a car, thus those items are more accessible.
The second factor in their theory is amotivated offender, who is anyone prepared to commit a crime. The theory itself takes on the view of the potential offender in terms of what would be a suitable target as well as guardianship. The motivation of the offender varies. Some offenders, like those committing theft, fraud, or embezzlement, are often motivated by financial needs while others might be motivated by social pressures from peers, while others might be motivated by the desire for power and control. Their motivation will impact what they consider a suitable target and what types of guardianship will be need to prevent them from committing a crime. In some cases, like cybercrimes, the more barriers and guardianship there is, the more attractive a target might be. It can be considered a major score to successfully hack a government agency, even if the risks and the potential to be caught are high.
The third factor in the theory is lack of guardianship. This has been the more well-explored and modified aspect of RAT because it is something that has been used to harden targets as much as possible. Target hardening is when you do something that reduces the likelihood of victimization, such as adding locks or alarms.
The people who prevent crime, called controllers, have been subdivided according to whom or what they are supervising—offender, target, or place (see the following figure).
• Guardians help protect suitable targets from motivated offenders. Examples are car owners who lock their car, or school staff who prevent bullying.
• Place managers harden targets, such as locks, security systems, dogs, safes, etc., which make accessing the target more difficult.
• Handlers exert informal social controls over potential offenders, preventing them from committing crimes (Felson, 1986). This can include parents, probation and school resource officers, coaches, religious leaders, and peers who all have an interest in keeping the offender out of trouble. Handlers must be effective and willing to intervene in order to serve as an actual guardian as conceptualized by Tillyer and Eck (2011).
Three main factors come together to create the opportunities for crime. Research has continued to refine and define the elements of the theory to the current version seen above. Image: Crime Triangle based on Clarke and Eck, 2003. Source: Barnes & Noble Education. License: CC-BY NC SA.
As the research into RAT has continued, it has been shown that RAT is much better at explaining property crime than personal crimes (Bennett, 1991). It is more difficult to apply RAT to crimes of passion, domestic violence, and other types of personal crimes because these do not necessarily depend on the daily routines of the victims. Work is being done to explore how RAT can explain some aspects of cybercrime (Jasinki & Navarro, 2012; Yar, 2005), with visibility being an important aspect of victimization, and accessibility and personal capable guardianship show varying results (Leukfeldt & Yar, 2016).
Criticisms of RAT include the lack of inclusion of individual and community characteristics into their understanding of the routines of people. RAT does not account for gender, race, age, or many other factors that research has shown both to being a criminal and a victim. For example, Cullen, Henson, Reyns, and Wilcox
(2010) found that gender plays a significant role in how routinized someone’s daily life was, with girls showing more structure to their day than boys. In addition, it is seen as more of a descriptor of crime rather than explaining why crime occurs. As Worthy points out, theories like RAT that rely on situational factors ignore the root causes of crime, especially structural factors (Wortley, 2010). Most prevention strategies have focused on target hardening and guardianship rather than the factors that motivate offenders. It has also been pointed out that using these theories as the foundation for crime prevention just moves crime to a different location (Wortley, 2010). Finally, because implementation of these strategies often focuses on areas where crime and victims are prevalent, it can disproportionately impact marginalized communities (Wortley, 2010). Even with these concerns, RAT continues to be a major theoretical orientation for understanding crime and victimization in the literature.